- Myanmar: Junta courts sentence activists up to 37 years over election boycott protest
Source: ABC News
“Courts in Myanmar have sentenced nine activists to up to 37 years in prison for involvement in a protest calling for a boycott of the elections last December, an activist group said Wednesday. May Hnin, a spokesperson for the Anti-Junta Forces Coordination Committee-Mandalay, said eight members including prominent activist Htet Myat Aung were sentenced to 37 years on Tuesday by two courts in Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, after being convicted under the electoral law and counterterrorism Law. A ninth activist was sentenced to 27 years after being convicted under the counterterrorism law, she said. Htet Myat Aung and the others were arrested days after staging a flash protest in downtown Mandalay on Dec. 3 calling on the public to reject the elections, abolish the military conscription law and release political prisoners detained after the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021.” (07/29/26)
- Uganda: Political prisoner Besigye collapses in the dock during treason trial
Source: Seattle Times
“Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye appeared to collapse in court on Wednesday during a trial in which he is facing treason charges. Besigye, 69, who has been detained without bail for several months, shouted the word ‘stop’ many times before he fell backward in the dock. The court proceedings were postponed as prison guards moved to attend to the high-profile defendant. Besigye, a four-time presidential candidate, has been repeatedly denied bail. His main attorney, Erias Lukwago, has also been arrested and charged with alleged failure to report acts of treason. In recent days, prosecutors have moved to present evidence they say will prove Besigye and others plotted to overthrow the government of President Yoweri Museveni.” (07/29/26)
- Yemen: Saudi puppet regime accuses Houthis of planning Red Sea transit fee system under Iranian guidance
Source: mint [India]
“Yemen’s government has accused the Iran-backed Houthi rebels [sic] of working with Tehran to establish a system for charging fees to commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, describing the alleged plan as a major threat to global shipping and energy markets. Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani said on Wednesday (July 29) that recently obtained intelligence indicated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was helping the Houthis create a technical and administrative framework to collect payments from shipping companies using one of the world’s busiest maritime corridors. … Reuters reported that senior Houthi officials travelled to Iran in July to attend the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, where Iranian officials discussed the possibility of introducing transit charges for ships passing through the Bab el-Mandeb.” (07/29/26)
- Four women accuse Leto of sexual offenses when they were teens
Source: CBS News
“Four women speaking to CBS News’ partner network the BBC have accused actor and band frontman Jared Leto of criminal sexual conduct when they were teenagers. One woman said the Oscar-winning actor and ‘Thirty Seconds to Mars’ band frontman sexually assaulted her in a motel when she was 17, while another told the BBC said she had sex with Leto in California when she was the same age — which would qualify as statutory rape. A third woman told the BBC that Leto threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19 while she was alone with him in a hotel room. Another alleges the star groomed her as a teenager, on one occasion suggesting they should have sex. … Leto has been plagued by allegations of sexual misconduct for years, but has denied all wrongdoing. No criminal charges have ever been filed against him.” (07/29/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jared-leto-women-accuse-us-actor-sexual-offenses-bbc-documentary/
- When Science Becomes a State Religion
Source: Mindset Shifts
by Barry Brownstein“[US Senator Rand] Paul has exposed a side of Dr. Fauci that his admirers prefer not to see: the narcissism of a public official who became accustomed to applause, deference, and celebrity treatment. … Yes, Dr. Fauci has the emotional IQ of an eight-year-old, which would be only his problem if he didn’t use the coercive power of government to harm millions of Americans as well as destroy countless businesses. That is the personal vanity side of the story. The deeper problem is institutional: once government officials are treated as arbiters of scientific truth, dissent becomes a political offense rather than a normal part of inquiry. The issue was never only Fauci; it was the state power that allowed one official consensus to become compulsory.” (07/29/26)
https://mindsetshifts.substack.com/p/when-science-becomes-a-state-religion
- Good rule of thumb: Mind your business
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal“People who believe they have a right to not see or hear something they don’t like are one of the biggest roadblocks to liberty. They imagine they have a right to not be offended. This nonexistent right is more important to them than letting others use their own property as they wish. Offense is subjective. What offends you doesn’t offend others. Something about you offends someone. It sets a dangerous precedent to attack others based on what offends you. Being offended is a personal character problem, not a condition that creates a right to control someone else.” (07/29/26)
- The US Immigration System Is Not Broken
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“I recently received an email from the ACLU stating that America’s immigration-control system is ‘fundamentally broken’ and needs a ‘total overhaul.’ … the ACLU has it wrong. The fact is that America’s immigration-control system is not broken. Instead, what most Americans still cannot bring themselves to see, even after 100 years of chaos, is that their beloved immigration-control system is inherently defective.” (07/29/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/07/29/the-u-s-immigration-system-is-not-broken/
- Inside the Emerging Microcollege Movement
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Kerry McDonald“Thoreau College is one of several microcolleges that have opened in recent years, offering intentionally small, immersive programming and expanding the landscape of higher education possibilities. As the higher education sector struggles with declining public confidence, enrollment challenges and institutional closures, microcolleges emerge as a creative, collaborative model for post-secondary education.” (07/29/26)
https://fee.org/articles/inside-the-emerging-microcollege-movement/
- “Pink” Prices Aren’t Prejudice
Source: The Daily Economy
by Matthew Blakey“The idea of a ‘pink tax,’ that women commonly pay more for equivalent goods, has sparked public debate and inspired various policy proposals. This concept gained prominence after the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs released its 2015 report From Cradle to Cane: The Cost of Being a Female Consumer, describing many examples of women’s products costing more than nearly identical men’s products. While the report documented many cases of women paying more than men for similar products, the causes of these differences are more complicated than the notion of a straightforward tax. Understanding how prices emerge in a market economy offers another way to interpret these disparities.” (07/29/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/pink-prices-arent-prejudice/
- New York wants to govern Iowa and Missouri — we’re suing to stop it cold
Source: Fox News
“U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously called the states ‘laboratories of democracy.’ In those laboratories, Iowans shape Iowa’s laws, Missourians make Missouri’s laws, and New Yorkers establish New York’s laws. That is a core tenet of federalism — a structural part of our nation’s Constitution that allows for great variation and competition between the states. What a state can’t do, however, is lay claim to the entire country as its laboratory. That’s exactly what New York is trying to do. Its new greenhouse gas reporting rule requires ‘fuel suppliers’ throughout the nation to register with New York and report information related to greenhouse gas emissions. But the rule doesn’t just concern companies doing business in the Empire State. New York has made clear that its new regulation applies to any ethanol and biodiesel producers whose product may, after being blended or sold by others, eventually end up in New York.” (07/29/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/new-york-wants-govern-iowa-missouri-suing-stop-cold
- A tax system that fines the behaviour that growth requires
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie“If the planning system is an inherited failure of land, the tax code contains an equally striking inherited failure of transactions, taxes that were reasonable revenue-raising devices in their moment and have become, in their present form, penalties on the specific behaviours a mobile, productive economy most needs. Stamp Duty Land Tax is the clearest case. It is a tax levied at the point of moving house, which means it is a tax on exactly the behaviour that lets people move to where the jobs are, that lets an ageing couple downsize and free up family-sized housing for the families who need it, that lets a growing firm’s employees relocate without a punitive toll standing between them and the move.” (07/29/26)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/a-tax-system-that-fines-the-behaviour-that-growth-requires
- Churchill and Trump: The Lions in Winter
Source: The Realist Review
by Martin Sieff“Winston Churchill is still revered in Britain and by old-generation American conservatives and Make America Great Again (MAGA) patriots alike, as the epitome of an all-wise, brilliantly successful Warlord. The truth was the precise opposite, as the great Anglo-American biographer and historian Nigel Hamilton documents in his classic trilogy of books on President Franklin Roosevelt’s wartime leadership …. as the war drew to a close, Churchill was indeed a Lion in Winter. He was an old fool – and recognized as such by both FDR and Josef Stalin at the fateful Tehran Conference of October 1943. … Now the United States is similarly blessed with its own Lion in Winter.” (07/29/26)
https://therealistreview.substack.com/p/churchill-and-trump-the-lions-in
- What Pope Leo Can Teach Liberals About Power
Source: The Nation
by Felipe de la Hoz“As he ascended the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica for his public introduction, the Chicago-born pope was already caught between constituencies that wanted to build on Francis’s transformations and those intent on turning back the clock. Archconservative elements of the church eager to take back the reins after a decade-plus of Francis were initially mollified by Leo’s ‘traditional’ presentation. Less of a public firebrand than his mentor, he cut a diplomatic figure that a friend memorably called ‘a dignified middle of the road.’ But the most hard-line traditionalists proved impossible to satisfy. The fringe, ultraconservative Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), long a thorn in the Vatican’s side, forced a showdown earlier this month. Dignified, middle-of-the-road Leo responded by unilaterally excommunicating not only the leaders but potentially adherents of the order.” (07/29/26)
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/society-sspx-excommunication-schism-leo-catholic/
- They Geofenced the Pews
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Thomas Karat“In late September 2025, a San Diego firm called Show Faith by Works, LLC registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent of the State of Israel. The filing it submitted under the Foreign Agents Registration Act laid out, in its own promotional language, the largest Christian Church Geofencing Campaign in U.S. history: a plan to draw digital perimeters around every major church in California, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado during worship hours, and around Christian colleges on weekdays, then to track attendees and hit their phones with ads. The contract ran to roughly $3.2 million, with a ceiling reported as high as $4.1 million. … The deepest libertarian objection here is not about Israel. It is about the individual conscience, and what it means to operate on it from the outside without its owner’s awareness.” (07/29/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/they-geofenced-the-pews
- The Dangerous Precedent Behind the Shiloh Hendrix Verdict
Source: The American Spectator
by Scott McKay“Nobody wants to be stuck defending white people who use the N-word at black people. Since the 1970s, if not further back than that, to do so indicates poor breeding, poor manners, and poor character. We should all know better. And in Rochester, Minnesota, last year, a woman named Shiloh Hendrix committed exactly that social transgression. … after a trial which — to be charitable — could have been better-run, Shiloh Hendrix was convicted on a misdemeanor count of disturbing the peace for having dropped an N-bomb on someone who was filming her. And now we’ve got people talking about Shiloh Hendrix and having a debate over the use of the N-word and just how unacceptable it is. Do we need this debate? Maybe a little more than we thought.” (07/28/26)
https://spectator.org/scott-mckay-dangerous-precedent-behind-the-shiloh-hendrix-verdict/
- Democracy and the Founders’ Constitution
Source: Law & Liberty
by Tal Fortgang“As someone who has long profited from and appreciated Roger Pilon’s work, I must admit that I am gratified to see him reckon with my work—however critically—in his recent essay, ‘On the Importance of First Principles.’ I think the root of our disagreement is not that Pilon has first principles and I do not, needless to say, but that we order our principles differently. More precisely, we see principles ordered differently in our Constitution and the system of ordered liberty it instantiates. Pilon is a libertarian, and he thinks our Constitution is, too. … My view is that our constitutional order rests upon the default assumption that at the state level majorities can rule—indeed must rule—limited only by a partly undefined set of rights.” (07/29/26)
https://lawliberty.org/democracy-and-the-founders-constitution/
- How To Be An Empire Propagandist
Source: Caitlin Johnstone
by Caitlin Johnstone“If you want to help the western empire administer war propaganda, one of the best ways to do this is to pretend the violence of empire-targeted governments happens in a vacuum, completely divorced from western imperial agendas.” (07/29/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/07/29/how-to-be-an-empire-propagandist/
- Anthony Fauci’s Private Diary and Emails Show He Knew Lockdowns Failed
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Ian Miller“Sometimes you learn that people are exactly who you think they are. And that may never apply more accurately and comprehensively than it does with Anthony Fauci. Fauci was portrayed, starting in early 2020, as an objective, brilliant, virtually infallible God-like figure. … That’s not an exaggeration; there were Christmas tree ornaments made depicting Fauci as a Pope, there were shrines put up in people’s houses, he was on the cover of various magazines, and he was given a parade of endless, relentlessly glowing media appearances from his fawning, adoring fans. Fans like CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. For most critics it was clear almost immediately that these portrayals and friendly media appearances depicted the exact opposite of reality.” (07/29/26)
- The Fifth Column, episode 568
Source: The Fifth Column
“The Fifth Gets a Substitute Teacher (w/ Jesse Singal).” (07/29/26)
https://www.wethefifth.com/p/the-fifth-gets-a-substitute-teacher
- Trump Watch, 07/29/26
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“The U.S. Is Mired in Statism.” (07/29/26)
- The Mark Edge Show, 07/29/26
Source: Free Talk Live
“Bitcoin, Censorship Resistance, Self Custody and Finding Freedom in New Hampshire with Light.” (07/29/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 07/29/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Fauci Flounders Under Final Sen. Paul Grilling.” (07/29/26)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/fauci-flounders-under-final-sen-paul-grilling